Kethuvim

"Mama always said, 'God is mysterious.'" - Forrest Gump

I believe this to be true. But what does it mean? It means that God works in different ways at different times. We like to try and fit God into a nice and neat box, but he's just too stinkin' big to cram into our measly little boxes. Jesus compares the Holy Spirit to the wind, saying that it blows where it wills. You can't catch it, you can only live in it and, at times, allow it to guide you. If God is mysterious, then that means that he isn't going to work in the ways that we feel he should. He isn't going to answer our prayers in the niec and neat way that he would. If he did, he wouldn't be mysterious, he would be predictable (and miserably boring). Sometimes God acts in giant ways where it is pretty obvious that he is working. However, more often than not, his ways are more subtle, his actions more hidden. Most of the time, when God is changing us, the change acts like a fine wine, subtley evolving and growing in us until it reaches its full potential.

I'm reading a book right now called Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott. She speaks a great deal about God has changed her over the years, but it has been slow and frustrating. It's been a series of strikes and gutters, ups and downs. She says this:

"That's me, trying to make any progress at all with family, in work, relationships, self-image: scootch, scootch, stall; scootch, stall, catastrophic reversal; bog, bog, scootch. I wish grace and healing were more abracadabra kinds of things; also, that delicate silver bells would ring to announce grace's arrival. But no, it's clog and slog and scootch, on the floor, in silence, in the dark.
I suppose that if you were snatched out of the mess, you'd miss the lesson; the lesson is the slog. I grew up thinking the lessons should be more like the von Trapp children: more marionettes, more dirndls and harmonies. But no: it's slog, bog, scootch."

Exactly. Every major form of spirituality acknowledges that any change (if it be worthwhile change) comes slowly and not without great effort. I hate that though. I live in the age where anything I want, I can get with the click of a mouse. It just seems that our mysterious Father's computer runs more like a 1985 Apple, instead of a brand new Mac. It also seems that he's ok with that, I guess it's time that I start being ok with it too.